India’s socio-economic cost of road accidents in 2019 was $15.71 billion to $38.81 billion: Bosch

Study examined road accidents’ data for the last two decades

The findings of the study offer OEMs, fleet operators and transport authorities an accurate view of accident situations that could be leveraged to tailor technological innovations, countermeasures, and policies to make Indian roads safer, according to Bosch.

India's socio-economic cost of road traffic accidents for the year 2019 was in the range of $15.71 billion to $38.81 billion, which amount to 0.55–1.35% of the GDP, reveales a study by Bosch India.

An analysis, conducted by the Accident Research team of Bosch's Advanced Autonomous Safety Systems and Corporate Research Department, on road accidents’ data for the last two decades threw up useful insights that would help identify new products, business strategies and road safety policies, said the company in a statement on October 25.

As per Road Accident Sampling System - India (RASSI) data, 781,668 vehicles were involved in road accidents in 2019, amounting to $0.57 to $1.81 billion in damages. Of these damages, commercial vehicles accounted for $356.2 million, cars $69.8 million, two-wheelers $18.7 million and buses $39.6 million. According to the findings of the study, the total medical cost of road traffic accidents’ victims in 2019 was close to $0.82–1.92 billion.

The year also saw a total productivity loss of $10.9 billion and $1.44 billion due to male and female fatalities, respectively, considering the country’s average net income per capita for males and females. Again, productivity loss owing to serious injuries accounted for $123 million while minor injuries accounted for $14 million.

Girikumar Kumaresh, Senior Programme Manager, Head Accident Research India, Advanced Autonomous Safety Systems at Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions, said, “Road traffic accident casualties bring about a great deal of human suffering in terms of social, medical and economic costs, and it is crucial we mitigate them. The absence of data regarding the loss due to road accidents was the motivating factor for us to study and analyse the socio-economic impact of road accidents in India.”

This research also combined studies from the World Bank and World Economic Forum, and over 50 international journals underpinned by Bosch’s innovative method to estimate socio-economic loss due to road traffic accidents in India, he added.

The data gathered would serve as a reference for policymakers to derive cost-benefit estimates for economic loss incurred by the respective stakeholders through the Human Capital (HC) method, Willingness-To-Pay (WTP) method and iRAP’s Rule of Thumb (RoT) method. This was the first such study that utilised suitable weighting factors from the RASSI database to offer a holistic view on a national scale, claims Bosch.

The report offers OEMs, fleet operators and transport authorities an accurate view of accident situations that could be leveraged to tailor technological innovations, countermeasures, and policies to make Indian roads safer, according to the company.